Monday, 31 August 2015

As we continue to look for the affordances that produce accelerated learning outcomes in our learners, we become more precise in the identification of the items that make a difference.We are assisted in this process by our Research Partners from the Woolf Fisher Research Centre of the University of Auckland.The identification of the 'change making' items and the 'topography' of the classrooms in which they are most significantly occurring produces valuable clarity for development and practice change. At the same time this produces significant tension between the 'teaching conscience' -the desire to do as well as humanly possible for our learners and the need for teachers to retain their sanity as they innovate in an environment where the artefacts for the leading of learning all need to be custom built for multiple groups in 3 different subjects.Just as we discovered during the years of Schooling Improvement, its abundantly obvious that appropriately differentiated small group Direct Instruction is one of the 'Game Changers'. This item of quality teaching is actually no different in the digital age from what it was in the analogue age of teaching. What is different is the affordance of provision to the learner and learning partners outside of the time of direct instruction some notion of direction and focus that is connected to an associated learning activity that can be carried out independently or collaboratively. This notion of the learner and learning partners not always having to wait for, or have the presence the teacher, is an absolutely new affordance and adds significant value to the 'Differentiated, Direct Instruction Game Changer'.The other significant Game Changer which adds on to the 'Leading of Learning' is this artefact providing a high quality learning activity which links to and consolidates the learning from the Direct Instruction. The more effectively these artefacts are linked and are effective in embedding the learning from the Direct Instruction, the more we see High Cognitive Engagement and accelerated achievement outcomes.As we pursue this effective, differentiated linkage there is a direct effect on teacher workload, especially at the beginning of this creative journey as almost all of the artefacts for leading or consolidating learning are custom builds. Fortunately the workload reduces as teacher proficiency and efficiency increases and teachers become more effective at creating 'leading of learning' artefacts that can be generically applied across levels within a learning discipline.The piece in the middle, seen again here below, remains critical in the teacher planing cycleas it is during this phase that all this 'hard graft' of planning and preparing for learning and teaching takes place. What this means practically for Pt England School is that as a staff we discuss:

how much differentiation is too much and how much is the right amount

how to most effectively link learning activities to direct instruction

Monday, 3 August 2015

Last week I had the humbling privilege to meet with passionate New Zealanders at a Treasury Hosted Event entitled 'A More Inclusive New Zealand'. This event was attended by just over 200 people and was an absolutely riveting mixture of 'practitioner narrative', 'executive summary' of NZ research findings and external critique.It was a marvellous opportunity to link evidence to practice in a cross sector forum. I'm not aware of this being done in New Zealand previously. Well done Treasury!Rather than rabbit on exhaustively about something that's extremely well covered elsewhere, I urge you to read Gabriel Makhlouf's opening address. Gabriel is the Secretary of the Treasury in NZ and for my offshore readers, for 'Secretary' read Boss!It's extremely heartening to live in a country where the 'man in charge of the money' is urging us in this direction!I would also urge you to visit the More Inclusive NZ site so you get to connect with the thoughts and ideas of people who are contributing to this important conversation in New Zealand, and to the 'Superu' government site which in their own words is encouraging the use of evidence by people across the social sector so that they make better decisions about funding, policies or services to improve the lives of New Zealand's communities, families and whanau.

My role at this wonderful event was to speak about equity and access for participatory citizenship by affecting change in the compulsory sector of education.Here's what I had to show and tell: